"gary had a sweetheart, my sweetheart, he called her. she was years younger, it was almost like a father and a daughter; she called him daddy, cos he made her feel happy in a way pops never had. gary was a drunkard like her father but not a bottle-throwing, window-smashing
drunkard, simply a nice chap who grew calm and happy as a child when he was drunk. they had some good times, gary and his sweetheart, lola. other days, it wasn't so tranquil.

but on the nice days, people would come by their flat, people of all kinds. once, they had a circus clown come for dinner, he laughed at odd moments, yet had these long periods of serious silence, when he looked like a chess champion considering his next move. his face would twist up into a determined scowl, and lola asked him if he was trying to solve the problem of world peace. gary laughed, he always laughed or smiled when lola spoke, and suddenly, so did the clown. so they broke out the bottles of wine, and the clown told a few jokes.

after a few months of serenity, gary was fired from the warehouse due to "low performance value from excessive drinking, before, and during company hours." lola was sympathetic, and tried to be caring. even though he did not want to - it was too much effort and he was suddenly very tired - gary could see her mind working, planning where she would go once she had left him. finality hung in the air about them, thick as the fog over the streets of their city."

I've blabbed before, possibly on the blog, and most definitely on the Compuserve Forum, that the only actor I find worthy to play James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser is Ioan Gruffudd.

The other day, I was looking for photos to support my case, when I came across the following still shot from his film Solomon and Gaenor. I saw this movie almost exactly ten years ago; at the end, I cried and cried... It's a very sweet, sad tale of star-crossed lovers.

Meanwhile, since I'm in the middle of Ayten and Devran's story, I'm constantly on the lookout for images that will add to my inspiration (I'm also looking for an image of Magdalena, or Mawdlen, Rosa's mother, for the prequel to Out of the Water, but that is a whole other story).

Imagine my excitement when I saw this image from Solomon and Gaenor, and realised it looks exactly like the scene in Ayten's story where she and Devran find themselves barricaded in a cave:

I just had to check out the poem about the circus and I left a comment there. Enjoyed the snippet on this post as well.

You caught my attention because oddly enough I just had pulled down some boxes of old writing that I was going to go through for some material to put on some posts. Answer: yes, I do occasionally go back to look at old writing and sometimes I am surprised by my work.

Interesting piece that you posted here....it nice and at times embarrassing to check old work as the writing can be downright amateur at times.....I look forward to reading more of Devran and Ayten in novel form.

Thanks Glynis and Joshua!Oh, yes, he is, Medeia. So happy to finally be able to feature him a writing-related post [g]Thanks Lee! Hope you share a snippet too.Someday maybe I'll share something really embarrassing Rekha. Haven't had the nerve to do so yet...

Got some old stuff coming up in the next couple weeks and will probably continue to do this occasionally. Be watching on Dec 14 when I'll be sharing on old sonnet I wrote back in college (@1973). I link to your blog in that post and give you credit for the inspiration.

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The last milestone was my 800th post, which featured the first sentence of a story, milking a cow, and lots more.

Prior to that, I celebrated my 500th post with a week-long contest and a recap of all the posts that had gone before, including a very handy list of all the books I'd reviewed, plus blog awards and writing snips and author interviews and writers' houseparties and Charles II and so on. I'd really like to do that for today's post. Unfortunately, I don't have time to go through 400 posts one by one. Maybe when I hit 1,000 I can make the effort, especially since going through the list of posts has gotten me intrigued about all the authors I've reviewed or interviewed.

Instead, I'm going to share a few random ones from the last 400 posts that leap out at me based on their titles:

The book ban is officially over! As soon as I mail off my cheque to Folio, that is. Unfortunately, this does not mean I'm going to rush out and buy piles of books tomorrow. The Folio books were a one-off deal to keep my membership in, and until I make a serious dent in the Books By the Bedside pile, I'm going to try my darndest not to buy new ones.

Today is also show your insecurity day! Love seeing mini-Alex wearing that scarf!
I forgot to bring my IWSG shirt with me, and the weather is not cooperating, so instead of the Alps, here I am working on a blog post with a sequoia outside my window:

OPTIONAL IWSG Day
Question: Have you ever slipped any of your personal information
into your characters, either by accident or on purpose?

Short answer: don't we all?

Long answer: I've always loved Tolkien's line from the foreword to The Lord of the Rings: "An author cannot of course remain wholly unaffected by his experience, but the ways in which a story-germ uses the soil of experience are extremely complex, and attempts to define the process are at best guesses from evidence that is inadequate and ambiguous."

One thing that readers may not realise is that different bits of real life -- from a specific fri…

Weblog title from JRR Tolkien

"Melian - a Maia, who left Valinor and came to Middle-earth; afterwards the Queen of King Thingol in Doriath, about which she set a girdle of enchantment, the Girdle of Melian; mother of Luthien, and foremother of Elrond and Elros."

Blog Posts To Come

Mini-essay: Persuasion, A Tale of Two Cities, Britannia Mews and After London - 3 from 19th C, one that takes place in 19th C (written in the 1940s). All four have similar styles but oh! their methods of execution are so different! Easy to see how Austen and Dickens have stood the test of time

2012 Blog of the Year!

Frank Lloyd Wright on Artsy

Word Counts

The Charm of Time: beta reviews/editing
Druid's Moon: queries
A Handful of Time (working title): drafting
Larksong: editing first draft
Out of the Water: editing final tweaks
Captive of the Sea & Rome, Rhymes, and Risk: editing
Peter and Penelope (need a title): typing up
Mystery at Bertram's Hotel (working title): drafting
The Face of A Lion: editing nth draft